Track is my field: Mark Cullen's international track and field website featuring storytelling, commentary, and predictions and event analyses for the Olympics and World Championships. I am writing from the 2018 European Championships in Berlin this week. I'll be reporting from the Diamond League finals in Zurich and Brussels as well. I'm active on Facebook and Twitter: @trackerati.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Caroline Rotich and Meron Simon get my nods as distance running athletes of the week.

Throughout Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Butch and the Kid are astonished at the persistence of their pursuers, and Butch asks repeatedly, "Who ARE those guys?"

Caroline Rotich pulled off her Boston Marathon upset win in classic underdog style: stay with the favorites long enough to sow seeds of doubt, then use your best weapon - her remarkable withering kick - to seal the deal on the upset. No one will be asking who she is anymore.

An interesting note from David Macharia in the Daily Nation, an online news source from Kenya that focuses on East and Central Africa: Caroline Rotich attended high school in Japan - which one?

What else but Sendai Ikuei Gakuen High School, which counts among its many illustrious alumni Sammy Wanjiru, 2008 Olympic marathon gold medalist.

Rotich graduated in 2002.

Duck Confit

Meanwhile, continuing to get way too much attention is Oregon's French import, Tanguy Pepiot. If you don't know his name, surely you have seen him in the media somewhere this past week, including ESPN. He infamously started waving to his hometown Ducks on the finish straight at the conclusion of the Pepsi Team Invitational steeplechase on April 13.

Well, not quite the conclusion. He was oblivious to fast-closing Meron Simon of the University of Washington, who applied what we learned in junior high and got to the finish line first.

This makes Simon the real hero of this race. He never assumed what Pepiot did: that the race was over. He left himself in position to win and took full advantage of the exceptional opportunity presented him.

On a silver platter.

Recipes for Duck confit are widely available online; the video of this race, increasingly less so. The more popular the video, the more imperious the Pac-12 has become about enforcing its rights to the tape.

Nonetheless, the videotape, too, remains widely available, and this is good news for Pepiot: it's one tape he's been able to find!

All credit to Rotich and Meron for executing so well the essentials of distance running we teach and learn in Middle School.

As for the all-important issue of how to punctuate this holiday, let's leave it to this gem from the Writing Explained website; the author identifies himself only as Jordan and he argues for the plural possessive:"I happen to agree with the AP Style Guide and the Chicago Style Manual because the plural possessive seems to make more logical sense here. There are multiple fools in the world for which April Fools is their holiday. Following this same logic would also explain why the holiday is sometimes referred to as All Fools’ Day because there are many many fools and this is their day. This is why I would advise anyone writing a paper to use April Fools’ Day, not April Fool’s Day."